swans

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of swan.

   A pair of swans nested among the reeds at the water's edge.

   Several swans drifted in slow circles around the fountain.

   Note

   The plural is the regular one in -s; swan never takes the unchanged plural of deer or sheep. The form serves every countable sense of the noun: birds on a lake, people whose grace suggests one, heraldic charges on a coat of arms, and the fans and players of the Sydney Swans or Swansea City. The acronym for "syndrome without a name" is uncountable, so it has no share in this form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of swan.

   He swans about the party greeting people he barely knows.

   She swans off on vacation whenever the deadlines pile up.

   Note

   The -s form belongs almost wholly to idle or showy movement: someone swans about a party or swans off on vacation. The verb is intransitive, so it leans on a word such as about, around or off rather than taking an object. The American dialect verb meaning "to declare" lives chiefly in the first person, as in I swan, so it rarely surfaces in this third-person form.

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